Soul of the Wildcat Read Online Free Page A

A chamber pot and basin for water shoved under the bunk served as personal facilities. Altogether the space probably measured twelve by twelve feet, if that much. Between the cougar and herself, there wasn’t much free room to move.
    The rock and the hard place.
    These two forces threatened to grind her to dust. Bitterness took root, but she wouldn’t let it beat her down. Life had handed her more than one raw deal, and she’d managed to survive. Fresh determination kicked in. She’d hold on to the memories, hoping to someday use them to punish the men who’d killed Greg in cold blood. She wouldn’t give up until her very last breath.
    Cradling her arms around her knees, Dakoda gave the cougar another wary glance. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kitty.” The rumble of an empty stomach reminded her just how near danger lurked. That cougar was probably just as hungry.
    She winced. It vaguely occurred to her the outlaws had locked her up with the cougar as a method of torture. The big cats were carnivores and could easily take down a grown man.
    The way it looked, she probably wouldn’t live through the night. The sun was beginning to arc into the west, on its way toward setting. The temperature would soon begin to drop, drastically. Days in the mountains might be warm, but nights bordered on uncomfortably cool.
    Tightening her grip on her legs, Dakoda propped her chin on her knees. She knew a search-and-rescue team would be sent out once she and Gregory failed to turn up, but the chance of rescue was probably slim to none. The outlaws knew how to survive, how to hide, in these mountains; they’d been doing it for generations uncounted.
    There would be more than one anxious person awaiting news. Gregory Zerbe had a wife and kids at home, people who would want to know what had happened to him.
    Dakoda frowned. She had…nobody. Not one person on the face of this earth cared if she lived or died.
    Somehow she’d gotten through a childhood that could be described as pure hell. Her mother was a druggie, an itinerant wanderer who’d dragged her daughter throughout the state. With little education and few morals, they survived by hook or by crook. Time after time, Dakoda found herself waiting out long months with one caregiver or another as Jenna Lee served time in jail for petty larceny. Her father was unknown, one of the many rabbits running through her mother’s briar patch.
    Most of Dakoda’s sitters were men, most of whom hooked up with her mother to party. Some would stay a few days, some a few months. The rare ones hung on a few years, maybe because they felt sorry for her. As she’d gotten older, their care and concern had turned carnal. By the time she turned fourteen, Dakoda wasn’t a virgin anymore. She was also beginning to experiment with drugs and alcohol.
    By all expectations, Dakoda was pretty much assured of walking straight down her mother’s well-worn path. No one expected anything out of a juvenile delinquent, nothing more than trash from the wrong side of the tracks.
    Salvation arrived in the form of her mother’s last hookup, a man named Ashton Jenkins. Unlike the rest of the men who’d passed in and out of their lives, Ash was a good man, a responsible man. A cop, he’d spent his life enforcing the law, not breaking it. For once good luck had been on Jenna Lee’s side when she’d gotten picked up for shoplifting.
    Dakoda had to smile when she remembered Ash Jenkins. Though he was a big brawny man who took no shit, he was surprisingly gentle with women. Ash really loved Jenna Lee and tried to do right by her and by her teenaged daughter. For the first time in their lives, they had a home. Stability. A responsible man who brought in a paycheck instead of a six-pack and a crack pipe.
    It didn’t last.
    Jenna Lee wasn’t the kind of woman who could easily settle down into domestic tranquility. She craved her